Harry's Unpleasant Summer
by Healer Pomfrey
Summary: Harry is forced to spend the holidays with Professor Snape, but it's everything else than pleasant. Will they learn to get along? Set after Harry's fifth year. AU


**Harry's Unpleasant Summer**

Harry was sitting on a bed in the hospital wing, playing with the breakfast on his plate. '_Tomorrow, I have to go back to the Dursleys; if I just could remain at Hogwarts_,' he thought, groaning inwardly. His friends had already gone home a few days ago, but Harry had earned himself a stay in the hospital wing with a bad concussion after absentmindedly flying on a school broom during the last evening of his fifth school year. His thoughts had been with Sirius, and only too late he had noticed that he was nearly crashing into the walls of the castle. Hurriedly turning the old school broom around as if it was his own Firebolt he had lost the power over the broom and had fallen down a few metres onto the ground. Ron had carried him to the hospital wing with several broken bones and the concussion that made Madam Pomfrey insist he had to stay with her for a few days, before he could travel home to the tender loving care of his relatives.

All of a sudden, the doors opened with a 'bang', and Professor Dumbledore entered the room. "Good morning my boy; I'm afraid I have disturbing news to discuss with you," he came straight to the point, which Harry knew was rare if it came to the Headmaster.

'_No lemon drops today?_' he mused wearily, giving the teacher a questioning look.

"I'm afraid due to the amount of blood Voldemort received from you last year he was able to breech the wards around your home, Harry. Assuming that you were in the care of your relatives by now he attacked them last night," Dumbledore continued with a grave expression on his face. "They are all gone."

Seeing Harry's terrified expression, he added, "I'm sorry, my boy, but you'll have to spend your summer holidays with Professor Snape. He is the only one, who will be able to keep you safe since students are not allowed to remain at Hogwarts during the summer and Professor McGonagall is still at St. Mungo's."

'_I've killed the Dursleys. It's my fault_,' Harry's mind screamed, while he absentmindedly gave the Headmaster a short nod, wincing at the pain that the small movement still caused.

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"All right, Mr. Potter, you may leave," Madam Pomfrey told the boy the next morning after thoroughly checking on him. "You still have to take it easy for the next few weeks," she instructed him, wondering why he didn't look more pleased at the good news that he was free to go. She sat down on the edge of his bed and gently asked, "What's wrong, Harry?"

"Professor Snape hates me so much," Harry replied in a hardly audible voice. '_I know the Dursleys hated me too, but at least I knew what to expect_,' he added silently.

"Ah, but Professor Snape isn't so bad and he doesn't hate you. Don't worry, Harry; everything will be all right, and if not you can owl me at any time."

"Thanks," Harry replied wearily and began to change into his clothing that Madam Pomfrey had laid on the bed for him.

Minutes later, the Potions professor strode into the room, his normal menacing glare on his face. "Are you ready to go?" he asked with his traditional sneer.

"Yes sir," Harry whispered and followed the professor down to the apparition point in Hogsmeade, where Snape all of a sudden gripped the boy's arm and apparated away. When Harry overcame the dizziness that followed the apparition he looked around, seeing that they were in a normal Muggle neighbourhood. '_The houses look simpler but more natural than on Privet Drive_,' Harry thought, anxiously following the professor.

Snape led him towards the edge of a small area of houses to a slightly larger house situated right next to a huge park. He ushered Harry inside and made him sit down on a sofa in what seemed to be the living room, before he took a seat opposite the large black table that mached the black bookshelves, which surrounded the room and were filled with lots of old tomes.

"Since we're stuck with each other due to the Headmaster's meddling, it's necessary that you follow my rules. Breakfast is at seven a clock. Be a second late and you won't get any. Lunch is at twelve and dinner at six. After breakfast you will do your homework until lunchtime. Once you have finished all of your assignments, you'll begin to prepare for the next school year. You will receive your new books during the next days. I expect to see your work at lunchtime. After lunch, you will do your assigned chores within the house, and when you're finished you have free time until dinner. After dinner, you'll study until your bedtime. If I have time, I will give you a defence lesson during the evening."

"Am I allowed to do magic here?" Harry blurted out in surprise.

"Yes," Snape sneered. "Like all magical houses this house is surrounded by wards that allows us to cast spells inside the wards. Your bedtime will be at nine o'clock."

"Nine o'clock?" Harry asked incredulously. "I'm nearly sixteen and not eleven, sir."

"Madam Pomfrey told me that you need a lot of rest. Therefore, your bedtime will be at nine. .clear?" Snape sneered, throwing the boy a menacing glare that efficiently shut him up.

'_Well, at least I get to eat during this summer, and Snape can't be worse than Uncle Vernon_,' Harry thought wearily while he followed his new temporary guardian into the room the man assigned him for the time being.

That thought made Harry keep his mind and not throw one temper tantrum after the other during the next few days. After a week, he had already finished all of his homework; however, the professor made lots of corrections in red all over his parchments, so that Harry was forced to do all the work again and again. Writing his Transfiguration essay for the fourth time Harry thought, '_Was my work so bad, or is he just trying to anger me? Normally, I get good grades in Transfiguration_.'

However, doing his assignments wasn't so bad, and Harry was glad that he was even able to complete them for the first time since he had begun to attend Hogwarts.

During the afternoons he had to prepare the strangest potions ingredients, clean the potions lab, or do chores in the garden or the greenhouse, which was full with plants that served as potions ingredients. Harry didn't mind any of his chores; from his time at the Dursleys he was used to doing much more and much worse chores anyway. What was beginning to grate at Harry's nerves was the teacher's attitude. Harry could do nothing correctly. Even if he was sure that he had done a flawless job, the professor still found something to criticize.

"Can't you do anything as you're told Potter?" Snape sneered looking at the pieces of frog liver that Harry had just cut. "When I say I need them all in the same size I mean that. This one..." he pointed at one piece, "is at least two millimetres longer than that one. But of course all mighty Potter knows everything better. You're exactly like your father, arrogant and good for nothing."

Harry groaned inwardly but was wise enough not to reply. '_Give it up, Professor. You won't manage to be as evil as my uncle was_,' he mused, returning to his mind's favourite topic. '_I didn't only kill the Dursleys, but also Sirius_,' he thought unaware of the fact that the teacher was still speaking to him. Every night, he was being plagued by nightmares about Sirius, the Dursleys, Cedric, his parents, and about all of his friends, whom he would surely lose to Voldemort at some stage. Glad that he was able to do magic, he put Silencing charms around his bed every night, so that Professor Snape was completely unaware of the fact that his ward only slept three hours at most each night, before he was pulled out of sleep by nightmares and didn't dare go back to sleep afterwards.

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One day, Harry was in the greenhouse doing his chores when he heard hissing sounds, "Help me pleassse, young one; I'm ssstuck."

He turned around in surprise and hesitantly walked over to the other side of the greenhouse, to which Snape had forbidden him the access vehemently. '_I just have to help the little snake_,' Harry thought, seeing a small black snake that was obviously being captured by a green plant with long, thin arms that were covered with small green pustules. He gently pried the plant's arms to the sides freeing the small snake that thanked him profusely.

"You're welcome," Harry hissed back and quickly returned to his work. '_What a strange plant_,' he mused. '_I've never seen something like that before. Well, of course I wouldn't have been able to see something like that at the Durselys, whatever it is._'

When he finished his chores, he decided to spend his free time roaming the park, so completely engrossed in his dark thoughts that he was completely unaware of the rain, which was pouring down heavily. He only noticed that he was soaked to the skin when his absolutely enraged guardian stood in front of him in the entrance hall shouting at him for getting wet, while he pulled his wand and cast a drying charm at the boy.

"You're sadly mistaken if you think you can get out of your chores just because you catch a cold," the professor sneered. "And I'm not nursing you back to health." He tossed a phial with Pepper-up potion at Harry forcing him to drink it on the spot.

"I'm sorry Professor; I didn't notice that it rained," Harry mumbled and headed up to his own room.

When he woke up in the night after another bad nightmare he noticed that the Pepper-up potion apparently hadn't helped too much. He had a terrible headache and parts of his body were sore, not only his throat but also other parts like his arms and knees. However, his throat, '_no; it's my mouth_,' he corrected himself, was worst. In the morning he took a long hot shower hoping to get rid of his cold by the hot water. However, the pain in his arms and legs only became worse and he noticed terrified that he had many small green pox in soft spots like under his armpits, in the crooks of his arms, and in his knee bends. '_What are these?_' he thought horrified. '_I just hope they'll go away by themselves; I wouldn't want to tell Snape about them_.'

Not feeling any hungry at all due to the pain in his mouth, where he had many of the green pox under his tongue, Harry only placed a small piece of toast on his plate, munching it slowly.

"Is that all you intend to eat?" the teacher asked strictly, and with a flick of his wand, Harry's plate filled itself with a little of everything that was on the table. "You will eat your breakfast, or I'll make you eat," he threatened in a dangerously quiet voice.

"No thank you, sir; I'm not hungry," Harry replied pleadingly, but all of a sudden his fork moved automatically and began to feed him.

Fortunately, Harry was used to hiding his little aches and pains from the Dursleys and managed perfectly to not let the teacher know that something wasn't all right with him. However, the small pox didn't go away even after a few weeks and Harry slowly began to feel outright sick.

One day when the Professor had made his fork force-feed his dinner to him Harry managed to get sick all over the table and himself. '_Oh no; I'm as good as dead_,' he thought terrified.

Fortunately, Snape merely threw a Scourgifying spell at Harry and the table and said sternly, "I expect you to tell me if you feel sick, Potter. Go to bed," causing Harry to gratefully comply.

Harry dragged himself through his school work and his chores every day and was glad that the teacher seemed to be quite busy and didn't have much time to practise Defence with him in the evenings.

One evening however, Snape told him to get ready for Defence practice after making Harry's spoon force feeding Harry his dinner, because he didn't want to eat. Harry dragged himself up into his room and took off the warm Weasley sweater, which he used to wear all the time now to get warm in spite of the temperature he felt he was running. '_He'll make me feel warm enough without a sweater_,' he thought, dreading the practice with the professor. Feeling too sick to properly defend himself, Harry couldn't prevent himself from getting hit by the teacher's strong body bind spell, causing Snape to shout at him telling him once more how incompetent he actually was. "Hard to believe that you taught a defence group," he hissed with gritted teeth. "Even the biggest dunderheads should be able to keep up with that."

"May I return to my room?" Harry asked quietly, feeling absolutely horrible.

"Yes," Snape replied, taking in the boy's flushed cheeks and wondering for the first time if the boy was ill since he didn't even try to defend himself against his verbal attacks. '_Normally the boy's defence capabilities are advanced beyond NEWT level; I wonder what's wrong with him today_,' he mused, knowing that he'd never tell Harry how good he actually was.

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When Harry didn't appear at the breakfast table in the morning Snape became worried, recalling the events of the evening. He silently entered the boy's room, seeing that Harry was lying on his bed in a half conscious state. He frowned and waved his wand at the boy in concern.

"Potter," he said softly, gently wiping an errand strand of hair out of his face without even realizing what he was doing.

"Pfessor," Harry whispered lazily, opening his eyes just a little bit.

"What exactly is wrong with you, Potter?" Snape enquired, worriedly feeling his forehead.

"I don't know. I have small green pox in some places;" he pulled his sleeves up to show him the pox on his arm, feeling too sick to hide his problem anymore, "and I'm sore and just feel a bit sick."

Snape groaned. "Potter, did you touch the Devil's Arm in the greenhouse in spite of my instructions to stay on the other side?" he asked in an upset voice.

"There was a snake; it was being captured by the plant and I had to help it," Harry whispered weakly.

"When was that, Potter?" Snape hissed angrily.

"A few weeks ago," Harry replied anxiously.

"Hold on for a minute; I'm going to call Madam Pomfrey," the professor replied with growing concern and hurried to the fireplace.

"Severus, you were supposed to take care of the boy!" Harry could hear Madam Pomfrey scold the Potions Master but wasn't able to hear his reply because she entered his room.

She checked on him and decided, "Severus, I don't care what Albus says. If you hadn't finally checked on him today, he would have been dead before the weekend was over. I'm going to take him with me to Hogwarts and I'll keep him there, even if I have to adopt him."

"That might be better, Poppy," Snape replied in agreement. "He obviously doesn't trust me."

'_How can I trust you if you already threatened me you didn't want to nurse me back to health when I just had a little cold and kept harassing me all the time_?' Harry thought, feeling as upset as he felt sick.

Madam Pomfrey ushered him to the fireplace and took him back to Hogwarts.

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Ten minutes later, Harry found himself back in the bed in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, which he had occupied just a few weeks ago. "Professor Snape said you touched a plant in his greenhouse called the Devil's Arm," Madam Pomfrey stated gently, giving Harry a questioning look.

"I touched something to free a snake that was captured by its arms; from what Snape said I suppose it's called the Devil's Arm," Harry confessed.

"It surely is, because you caught the Devil's Arm Pox," the Mediwitch explained softly. "You can be lucky that Professor Snape checked on you when he did. Why didn't you tell him earlier that you felt ill?" she asked while she spelled several potions into the boy's stomach, causing him to visibly relax.

"Because he was very angry when I walked through the rain one day telling me that he didn't want to nurse me back to health when I caught a cold or something," Harry muttered.

"It will take a few days to go away, maybe even a week since it obviously remained untreated for a few weeks," Pomfrey said pensively. "I take it that you don't want to return to Professor Snape's house?"

"No, definitely not, if there's any other choice," Harry replied, throwing the Mediwitch a pleading look."

"Well, I have to call the Headmaster and speak with him. I could imagine two possibilities, one of them is that I adopted you, and the other would be that you became my apprentice. I don't know what your future plans are, Harry, but if you considered becoming a Healer, I could take you on as an apprentice and you'd automatically be able to stay at Hogwarts with me."

"I'd like that, although I don't know if I'd be good at that," Harry replied thoughtfully. "So far, I wanted to become an Auror, but for that I'd have to take the Potions NEWT class, and I don't want to have classes with Professor Snape ever again." He had just voiced his thoughts when another thought struck his mind. "Do I have to take Potions, if I want to become a Healer?"

Madam Pomfrey gave him a calming smile. "You need Potions of course, but I'm not bad at brewing and could teach you enough to pass your NEWTs. There's no need to worry about that. You wouldn't have to take classes with Professor Snape." She watched the boy slowly get drowsy and drift off to sleep with a small smile playing on his lips, before she called her best friend, Minerva McGonagall.

"That's a good idea, Poppy, provided that Harry is willing to study Healing. Let's speak to Albus; I'll support you as much as possible."

McGonagall and Pomfrey had to put up a huge fight with the Headmaster, who only respected Harry's decision when he woke up and confirmed that he wanted to become an apprentice to Madam Pomfrey.

"Are you sure, my boy, that you want to become a Healer?" Dumbledore asked gently, giving Harry a piercing look.

"Yes Headmaster, I'm sure, and I'm very grateful to all the three of you for respecting my wish," Harry replied, feeling extremely relieved for the first time during these holidays.

**The End**

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_I'm not a native speaker of English; please excuse my mistakes or tell me, so that I can correct them._

_All recognizable characters belong to Mrs. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story._


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